Paper is no longer a passive reading surface for the presentation of visual information. The advent of printed electronics and augmented reality have brought a new interactive possibility to paper: that it could communicate with things around it. Read more about CoDE’s Prof David Frohlich’s significant grant for Next Generation Paper.

CoDE’s Prof Roger Maull was recently a guest at a workshop run by Aston University’s Advanced Services Group. The workshop included contributions from Rolls Royce, JCB and Genie. All these companies have historically focused on the supply of physical products but are now moving to offering availability-, use- and outcome-based contracts: a fundamental shift both influenced and enabled by Digitisation.

Rolls Royce explained how they collect data from a number of sensors on the engine (see above) and then use a very simple process, SATAA (sense, acquire, transfer, analyse, act) for collecting and analysing data. This enables Rolls Royce, within four minutes of take-off, to provide airlines with warning of potential mechanical problems. This digitisation and analysis is central to their shift to power (or more accurately, thrust) by the hour contracts, enabling the move to servitisation. Intriguingly, half of their data analytics team work solely to develop new techniques and models for potential problems in an unknown future – a challenge which increasingly occupies digital business.

CoDe’s Prof Lampros Stergioulas reports that his team’s application to the University’s Urban Living Awards has been awarded the full funds requested. This work will be in collaboration with colleagues from the Departments of Computer Science and Sociology.